If your brand is trying to build a YouTube campaign strategy, this week's Creator's Tip will give you 10 fundamentals to include as part of that strategy. We've already given you an overview of the new YouTube Creator Playbook for Brands, and last week's Creator's Tip took a deeper dive into section one which was all about how to create a video content marketing strategy for YouTube. Today, we'll focus on section two, 10 fundamental elements to creating video content people love.

10 Fundamentals For Creating Content That People Will Love

It’s important to understand how to build, serve, and engage your audience. You don’t have to utilize each of these 10 fundamentals, but you should figure out which will work best for you, your content, and your audience.

Simply ask yourself how you can include any of these fundamentals into your creative strategy when you’re brainstorming new ideas.

1. Make Your Video Content Shareable

How can you make content shareable? You can stay on top of what’s popular, what’s trending, and what people online are already discussing, then join into that conversation with a video that puts your brand’s spin on it. Also, simply ask yourself, “Would I share this? If so, how would I describe this to my friends?”

There’s two things that trigger sharing: strong emotion and shared values. If your video can elicit strong emotion and feelings or make the viewer feel like, “Yes, I believe that, too!” then it’s much more sharable. The Playbook gives a couple of great examples of shareable content, including this video:

2. Collaboration is a Win for Both Parties

If your brand can offer value to a creator on YouTube that they can’t access on their own, then it might make sense to collaborate with that creator in order to reach their audience. Both parties win!

Just remember that YouTube personalities are brands themselves. They’ve spent a lot of time building their audience and really protect that relationship. Collaborate with them in a creative way that makes sense for creator, their audience, and your brand. The Playbook gives various examples of great collaboration projects. We like this one from Grace Helbig and Shane Dawson which pulled in over 1.2 million views:

3. Make Video Content About Discoverable Topics

There’s some search queries for your industry that are “evergreen,” which means that they will be consistently searched for over time. How-to videos are one such example. So make videos that target people who are making those searches and then fully optimize your video’s title, description, and tags.

This Thanksgiving meal video from Epic Meal Time has consistently ranked in the top #3 results for 'Thanksgiving' on YouTube since its release - and probably for many years to come;

4. Make Your Content Accessible

This doesn’t mean adding captions to the video. Rather, this is about making sure that every first-time viewer can understand the context and appreciate the video as equally as someone who has been around the channel for a long time. Remember, every video you publish is potentially someone’s very first exposure to you, so make it as easy as possible for those new viewers to get brought up to speed with your videos.

The Playbook uses the BMW Launch series as an example of a series that stands on its own, whether or not you’ve seen any of the previous episodes:

5. Be Consistent with Everything

This doesn’t just mean being consistent with your publishing schedule, but also with your video’s format, the video’s elements such as intro/outro, different segments, and such, and also its voice. Does it have a consistent point of view that’s apparent in ever video no matter how different each video might be?

Being consistent means your viewers know roughly what to expect and will turn to your videos time and time again. It also helps them feel comfortable and even sets a sense of expectation. The Playbook highlights Rhett and Link's 'Good Mythical Mornings' as a great example of a web series with a consistent schedule.

6. Target the Right Audience

This means that you should have a target audience in mind for your videos. Who are you trying to reach and how do you want them to respond when they see your video? Maybe look at videos that are similar to yours and try to determine who’s engaging with it and why. Then reproduce those elements in your own videos. Dove had a very definite target audience in mind with their Real Beauty Sketches campaign:

7. Sustainability

It’s usually pretty easy to crank out the first couple videos and put a lot of time and energy into them, but often brands and creators slowly fade off as it becomes increasingly difficult to put the same amount of time and energy into every video.

When you design your videos, make sure it’s a format and style that you can sustain. Look at everything that goes into the videos, including production, location, actors, budget, time restraints, and more, and plan ahead of time for ways you can ensure that your videos grow and audience over time. Short bursts of videos rarely build an audience for your brand. The Playbook selected Vogue's 'From the Vogue Closet' as an example of a brand with a long term strategy:

8. Converse With Viewers

YouTube is different from TV in many ways, but one of them is that viewers here want to talk with the creator. It should be part of your brand’s strategy on YouTube to give viewers the chance to provide feedback, or, better yet, involve them in your content.

9. Consider Interactive Content

Having a conversation with your viewers is one thing, but giving them the opportunity to interact with your content and your brand is even better. You can share viewer questions and feedback, use their videos inside your videos, and even let the viewers dictate the content itself. The following video, from chef Jamie Oliver, is a fantastic example of an interactive video (make sure the annotations are on):

10. Be Authentic

This is kind of a buzz word that’s thrown around, but it’s really true. We all respect, admire, and look up to those who are personable and authentic. It’s important that your brand finds ways to make your message relatable. Maybe tell the backstory of how your company started, give little-known facts about it, or interview people with stories that humanize your brand. People can detect when they’re watching someone who’s truly passionate about something versus someone who’s just talking about the same subject on camera, so make sure the passion is real and authentic, not manufactured.

About the Author - Carla Marshall

Carla Marshall is the Managing Editor of ReelSEO, and the Community Manager for the ReelSEO YouTube Channel. She is YouTube Certified, and specializes in video optimization and organic marketing. View All Posts By - Carla Marshall